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During the summer of 2016 I relocated from Seattle to Las Vegas. Since then, I have not put up new posts here on New To Seattle, although visitors are free to comment on older posts, to which I often respond. In Sin City I've launched a new blog, New To Las Vegas, which continues my same tradition of observation, musings and commentary. Visitors can access my new blog by clicking here. Please visit and stay awhile.

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Searching the 1940 U.S. Census in Seattle: Oops!

You probably heard the big buzz. Today was the day that, after a mandatory 72-year secrecy period, the actual work papers from the 1940 U.S. Census were to be made public. And on the Internet, no less. That way, you immediately could search for Grandpa and Grandma and anyone else in your family tree alive at the time instead of going to the nearest government depository library and pouring through reels of smelly microfilm.

But you know, it’s a government project, and government plans don’t always work out. I logged on, specified the enumeration district, as census tracts are called, where my mother lived that year, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I’m still waiting.

It turns out that the feds and their private sector partner, Inflection, a for-profit company owned by Silicon Valley venture capitalists that operates the website site archives.com, wildly underestimated the first-day demand. Servers crashed with the online equivalent of a 6.0 earthquake (remember before I became New To Seattle, I was New To California, where even 4.0 shakers were greeted with a yawn). Apparently Inflection and their government contacts never got the memo about how 243,542,822 Americans had Internet access, plus another 2 billion or so elsewhere.

That occasioned the following back-and-forth email today between me and the fine folks at Inflection d/b/a archives.com:

Thank you for contacting Archives.com. I am sorry about the difficulty you are having viewing the pages. Please try refreshing your browser, if you reach a page that states no longer valid. Due to extraordinary demand, this website is undergoing updates to better accommodate users. While these changes take place, you can still use many of the useful features built into this website (search for enumeration districts, bookmark results, etc). We appreciate your patience, as enhancements are underway! Please let us know if we can assist you further.